Archive for the ‘Circuit’ Category

I was awaiting the formal obituary, but… I’m heartbroken to report that Jeff Koch passed away over the weekend.

Koch served at the Office of Management and Budget and most recently was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management at U.S. Department of Labor.

Koch passed away suddenly on November 3 after an unexpected complication of cancer, according to friends.

I will update this post with the official obituary when it is available, which will have viewing and funeral times.

But in the meantime, friends have created a GoFundMe page for Koch’s wife, Patty Stolnacker Koch. “The friends of Patty and Jeff have organized this gofundme for Patty – – not only to show our love, caring and support to this wonderful friend and mom-to-be, but to also to help relieve some of the many expenses of raising a child,” the page says.

JEFFREY WESCOTT KOCH passed away unexpectedly with his beloved wife by his side on November 3, 2018, after a courageous battle with liposarcoma. He was 55.

The son of Janice Park Koch and the late Franklin Wescott Koch, Jeff was born on May 6, 1963, in Plainfield, NJ. He graduated from Warrensburg High School in Warrensburg, Missouri in 1981 and received his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla in 1985.

He was an Eagle Scout and a passionate member of the Boy Scouts of America, serving in multiple positions including District Commissioner for Washington, DC. He was also a member of the Boy Scouts’ Tribe of Mic-O-Say organization.

In January 2017, Jeff was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management at U.S. Department of Labor. He previously held various appointed positions at the U.S. Department of Labor as well as the White House Office of Management and Budget, during which time he received a letter of commendation from President George W. Bush.

Between 1998 and 2002, Jeff served as chief of staff for his friend and fellow Eagle Scout, Rep. Pete Sessions. Prior to his time in Washington D.C., Jeff worked as an engineer at RF Monolithics, Inc. and E-Systems in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Jeff is survived by his wife of seven years, Patty Stolnacker, and his expected daughter, due in January. He is also survived by his mother, Janice Koch, of Rowlett, Texas; his sister, Jennifer Leigh Davenport, with husband Mark and children Bryce and Hannah, of Rockwall, Texas; his brother, Barry Franklin Koch, with wife Claudia and children Lara and Julie, of Ingolstadt, Germany; and his loyal friend, Lincoln. Jeff was an adored husband, son and brother, a beloved friend and confidante, and a tireless volunteer.

He was passionate about cycling, engineering, nature, and music. He made a lasting difference to every endeavor he pursued. Jeff brought his engineering acumen and sense of fun to everything he did, providing joy and lasting memories of Halloween haunted houses, Olympic festivities, and epic water slides to his Palisades neighborhood.

Memorial services will begin on Friday, November 9, 2018 with a visitation at the Everly Wheatley Funeral Home in Alexandria, Virginia from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., followed by a service on Saturday, November 10, 2018 at 3 p.m. at the Fairlington United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Virginia.

Jeff Koch, manager of the Office of Management and Budget’s Internal Efficiency and Effectiveness portfolio, didn’t try to force agencies to accept the Bush administration’s e-government plans for back-office services. Faced with resistance from agency managers and lawmakers, Koch used persuasive tactics.

He cleared roadblocks to ensure that initiatives such as E-Payroll and E-Travel could mature.

“Jeff has provided unwavering leadership for the agencies with his management of the Internal Efficiency and Effectiveness E-Government portfolio,” said Karen Evans, OMB’s administrator for e-government and information technology.

“Jeff has ensured the milestones for each of the initiatives are met, and any obstacles in the way have been cleared.”

Agencies saved $508 million in 2007 from initiatives in Koch’s portfolio.

ConnellyWorks, the public relations, marketing communications and events services, is merging with Yes&, a newly formed marketing agency, the DorobekINSIDER has learned.

The formal announcement will come later today.

Yes& is building a new firm that will focus on both public and private sector markets. Yes& was created by the merger of three established communications companies – PCI Communications, LeapFrog Solutions and Carousel30. ConnellyWorks becomes the latest addition to that group.

As part of the agreement, ConnellyWorks will continue to maintain its office in Arlington, VA. Furthermore, Joanne Connelly, who founded ConnellyWorks, will continue to serve as president of ConnellyWorks and will be part of the Yes& executive team

I will add the formal announcement to this post when it is released.

ConnellyWorks, founded some 15 years ago by Joanne Connelly, a former editor of Federal Computer Week, has been one of the cornerstones of the government IT market with business lines including public relations, events, and events management.

The team at the Oxford American Dictionaries have selected GIF as the 2012 word of the year.

In case you don’t know:

GIFverb to create a GIF file of (an image or video sequence, especially relating to an event): he GIFed the highlights of the debate

The GIF, a compressed file format for images that can be used to create simple, looping animations, turned 25 this year, but like so many other relics of the 80s, it has never been trendier. GIF celebrated a lexical milestone in 2012, gaining traction as a verb, not just a noun. The GIF has evolved from a medium for pop-cultural memes into a tool with serious applications including research and journalism, and its lexical identity is transforming to keep pace.

Turning garbage into energy at the EPA — just one of the amazing SAMMIES nominees.

Taking an inside virtual tour of the Newseum’s new media gallery here in Washington… and what it means for government.

Big federal government contracting news this morning: GTSI, which government marketing guru Mark Amtower called the grand-daddy of government resellers, is being sold. GTSI announced this morning that Unicom, based in Los Angeles, is buying the company for $77 million. Washington Technology says it is quite a fall from grace for the company, particularly after the company’s run-in with the Small Business Administration over its small business sales.

Did you see 60 Minutes last night? CBS News correspondent Leslie Stall spoke to two Air Force pilots who refuse to fly the F-22 Raptor — the most expensive fighter ever — because it has been plagued by a mysterious flaw that causes its pilots to become disoriented, apparently from a lack of oxygen.

12.1 — that’s the percentage of spending cuts agencies could see next January if Congress does not come up with an alternative to sequestration. Federal News Radio says the cuts are based on agencies’ fiscal 2012 discretionary budgets. The Budget Control Act passed last August called for reducing federal spending by $1.2 trillion over the next decade with half of the cuts come from defense spending. Congress returns today, and the House will take up an alternative to sequestration.

There could be another rounds of base closures. The Washington Post says the Defense Department is gearing up for consolidation once again, putting local companies and lobbying firms on alert. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta says that despite the controversy that normally surrounds such moves, “it is the only effective way to achieve infrastructure savings.”

Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement intelligence chief James Woosley pleaded guilty for part in a scheme to file almost $600,000 in false travel expense reports for contractors. MSNBC says Woosley must surrender over $180,000 of his profits in a scheme that also included several other ICE employees and contractors. He faces 18 to 27 months in jail and a potential fine.

We told you about this last week, but the Washington Post is reporting this morning that the Air Force plans to restart the IT contracts after protests from losing companies. The April 16 award for network equipment is valued at $6.9 billion. General Dynamics and technology company GTSIwere among nine contractors picked to share the network equipment contract. The Government Accountability Office says the Harris Corp and Dell, were two of those contractors challenging the deal.

Speaking of contracting – government relationships….The White House has just released a second round of advice for how government and its contractors can communicate more freely. Federal News Radio says the announcement is part of a new memo from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy that outlines eight myths plus eight realities to dispose of them. The so-called Mythbusters 2 is signed by acting procurement chief Lesley Field. The new memo emphasized industry misconceptions. The original 2010 Mythbusters memo dealt with myths held by government.

‘Tis not the season—to be moving Christmas trees, that is. The National Christmas Tree succumbed to “transplant shock” after being moved from the White House lawn, the National Park Service reported Saturday. The Park Service says it already has a replacement in mind for the Colorado blue spruce that occupied a spot on the White House’s South Lawn, and it will be in place by the time the holiday season rolls around next winter. The new tree reportedly will not be planted until October.

And on GovLoop, we go myth busting with the federal sector equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaint process. Yeah, it doesn’t sound like all that much fun. But it’s an important part of government that many people don’t understand. We separate fact from fiction in a post by GovLoop member David Grinberg.

A Few Closing Items:

It hasn’t happened since Richard Nixon was president — the government shrank. The New York Times’ Floyd Norris reports that for the first time in 40 years, the government sector of the American economy has shrunk during the first three years of a presidential administration. Spending by the federal government, adjusted for inflation, has risen at a slow rate under President Obama. That increase has been more than offset by a fall in spending by state and local governments, which have been squeezed by weak tax receipts. In the first quarter of this year, the real gross domestic product for the government — including state and local governments as well as federal — was 2 percent lower than it was three years earlier, when Barack Obama took office in early 2009, the Times says. The last time the government actually got smaller over the first three years of a presidential term was when Richard M. Nixon was president. That decrease was largely because of declining spending on the Vietnam War.

A budget update:The Hill reports that House Republicans will bring their budget up for a vote this week. The Hill says that House lawmakers will return to a familiar debate over the deficit when they come back to Washington today. Republican leaders are planning to bring up a $260 billion measure to slash the budget gap and replace across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect in 2013. And we mentioned this earlier, but… The bill, known as a ‘reconciliation’ proposal, is the product of six House committees and will be combined into one piece of legislation by the House Budget Committee… Principally, the GOP measure would replace $78 billion in sequestered cuts resulting from the failure of the congressional ‘supercommittee’ to strike a bipartisan deficit deal last fall… In addition to the $78 billion in sequester replacement, the bill contains an additional $180 billion in cuts aimed at reducing the deficit. Among the federal programs hit are food stamps, funding for the 2010 healthcare and financial regulatory laws and the refundable child tax credit.

The Human Capital League has a wonderful post… Top 10 HR Lessons from Star Wars -Number 10: Nepotism doesn’t work… and they have Darth Vader saying, ‘Luke, you know, I really think you should reconsider Imperial employment. We pay competitively, and we have a great benefits package.

Despite everything else, the big story of the week is The Conference — GSA Public Building Service’s now infamous 2010 Western Regions Conference, as highlighted by the GSA Inspector General report.

This week, Martha Johnson, the GSA Administrator, decided to fall on the sword, despite the fact that by every account, she had nothing to do with the planning of this conference. Johnson was finally confirmed by the Senate in February, 2010 — a mere eight months before the Western Regions Conference took place in October 2010. It is sometimes remarkable to me that people who claim government is incompetent somehow now somehow contend that Johnson crafted this conference — or that it somehow blights her view of government ethics. Those of us who know Johnson — now and through the years — know that, regardless of how they feel about her decisions within the agency, she would never do anything to blight GSA’s reputation. Many of us would argue she hasn’t. (Kudos to Gartner analyst Andrea Di Maio, for his truly fair and balanced assessment: Why it’s chief’s resignation should make GSA proud.)

Personally, I continue to believe the situation is terrible. Without taking anything away from the new acting administrator, I believe it was a bad decision to get rid of Johnson… and it will hinder good government. Mistakes were made. Nobody questions that. Personally, I would argue that any event that involves clowns is a bad idea. But if we want good government — if we really want good government and value our empoyees — it is time to stop the scapegoating and drive-by judgements.

That being said, the DorobekINSIDER has obtained Johnson’s final words to the agency… and acting administrator Dan Tangherlini first words.

First, Johnson’s parting remarks to the agency:

Martha Johnson

On April 2, 2012, I submitted my resignation as the Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration to President Obama and he has accepted it.

I take this action with great sorrow. GSA holds a special place in my heart. It has been a singular honor to lead you as Administrator and I am enormously proud of everything this innovative and agile agency has been able to do.

I leave a GSA deeply committed to its mission of helping government organizations deliver on their missions to the nation. I have been privileged to be able to translate the President’s agenda into effective strategies that range from more energy efficient buildings and vehicle fleets to innovative use of cloud technologies, and much more. I am proud of our progress and believe it has been a catalyst for important change to affect government operations.

The Agency, however, has made a significant mis-step. Reports of an internal conference in which taxpayer dollars were squandered led me to launch internal reviews, take disciplinary personnel action, and institute tough new controls to ensure this incident is not repeated. In addition, I feel I must step aside as Administrator so that the Agency can move forward at this time with a fresh leadership team.

Collectively, the people of GSA now must review, repair, and rebuild. I am absolutely confident that this work of renewal can be done by the hard working people of GSA and that our creative abilities will continue to find true value for our government and nation.

With the deepest regard,

Martha

After the break, read Tangherlini’s first words to GSA…

Dear GSA:

Daniel Tangherlini

Today, I am joining your team to serve as your Acting Administrator. I recognize that this is not easy, but I am confident that you will not allow circumstances to slow your momentum or progress in the many important areas of the federal government where GSA plays a vital role.

As the Assistant Secretary for Management and CFO of the Treasury Department and GSA customer for the last three years, I am impressed by the progress of this agency, as both a service provider and a business partner. Over the course of the last several years, GSA has made tremendous strides to promote efficiency and cost savings throughout the federal government. This is a mission we remain committed to through programs such as the Green Proving Grounds, our efforts to increase sustainable buildings in our government portfolio, and effectively executing the President’s Executive Order around fleet efficiency. We cannot allow mistakes or misjudgments of a small number of individuals to slow our progress or take our focus from our goals. GSA’s business is to solve customers’ problems; we are acting quickly to address them.

We are making immediate actions to ensure that our customers maintain their faith in our services and their basic value proposition. Some immediate steps that we are undertaking include:

· Reviewing all planned and proposed conferences and meetings that involve travel or substantial expenditures of public funds.
· Canceling a number of conferences that only or primarily involve internal staff.
· Launching an evaluation of our GSA conference and travel policies and business justification.
· Enhancing our focus on oversight by improving our management of risk.

As the provider of services and solutions to the federal government and its agencies, we have a special responsibility to ensure that we conduct our business at the highest level of efficiency, delivering the best value to the American people and in a way that is beyond reproach or question. We need to redouble our efforts to those core values and ensure they are reflected in every action we take. We will continue to demonstrate our value proposition to our customer agencies through our own improved internal efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Every step of the way I will work with you, the talented, committed members of the GSA team to leverage the challenges we face today as an opportunity to build an even stronger GSA. I look forward to meeting you, talking to you, and hearing your ideas for improving our agency. We’ll be exploring ways to more formally engage you in the discussion, but until then, if you have an idea, suggestion, or concern, please do not hesitate to contact me at Dan.Tangherlini@gsa.gov.

The success of federal agencies is determined by their workforce. I am confident that the excellent women and men of GSA can continue to deliver service excellence and integrity.

Dan Tangherlini
Acting Administrator

Good luck, Mr. Tangherlini… and I deeply hope the workers at GSA, most of whom have started to show true innovation over the past three years, demonstrate the courage that comes with true public service.

At today’s White House Science Fair, President Obama got the chance to shoot a marshmallow across the State Dining Room using 14-year-old inventor Joey Hudy’s “Extreme Marshmallow Cannon.” Hudy designed and built the machine, which can launch the fluffy white confections up to 175 feet away using pressurized air.

My favorite part of the video is right after the President suggests that they should shoot the marshmallow cannon, there is an audible gasp in the room.